#158

“It is strange, the morbid inclination we have to derive satisfaction from the fact (generally false and always irrelevant) that a work of art is traceable to a “true story”. Is it because we begin to respect ourselves more when we learn that the writer, just like ourselves, was not clever enough to make up a story himself? Or is something added to the poor strength or our imagination when we know that a tangible fact is at the base of the “fiction” we mysteriously despise? Or taken all in all, have we here that adoration of the truth which makes little children ask the story-teller “Did it really happen?”” (Nabokov, 1961: 40).

NABOKOV, Vladimir (1961). Nikolai Gogol. New York: New Directions.

#29

“There is a time and place for everything. All the same I have not taken a virtuous man for my hero. And I can even say why not. Because at last the time has come to give a rest to the poor 'virtuous man'; because the words 'virtuous man' have become meaningless; because they have transformed the virtuous man into a horse and there is no writer who does not ride him, urging him on with a whip or anything else he can lay hold of; because they've exhausted the virtuous man to such an extent that there's not a shred of virtue left in him, and all that remains of him is skin and bone; because their appeal to the virtuous man is sheer hypocrisy; because they do not respect the virtuous man. No, it is high time we harnessed the scoundrel. And so let us harness the scoundrel” (id, 234-235).

#28

“As the wind blows, so we suddenly organize charitable, philanthropic, and goodness only knows what other societies. The intention may be excellent, but nothing ever comes of it for all that. Perhaps it is because at the very beginning we suddenly feel satisfied and think that everything has already been done. For instance, after organizing some charitable society for the benefit of the poor and subscribing a considerable sum, we at once give a dinner to the prominent dignitaries of the town in honour of so laudable an undertaking and, needless to say, spend half of the subscribed funds on it; with what is left of the money we at once rent magnificent offices with heating facilities and porters for the members of the committee, and all that is left for the poor is five and a half roubles, and even over the distribution of this sum the members cannot agree and everyone keeps recommending some relation of his own” (id, 208).

#27

“To begin with, a scholar approaches them in a most blackguardly fashion: he begins timidly, moderately, he begins by asking a most modest question: 'Is it no from there? Does not a certain country derives its name from that particular place?' Or, 'Does this document date from another and later age?' Or, 'Are we sure that such a people does not mean quite another people?' He immediately quotes such and such ancient writers, and as soon as he detects some kind of a hint or something that he believes to be a hint, he at once becomes emboldened and self-confident, talks to the writers of antiquity like an old friend, pits questions to them and supplies the answers himself, forgetting completely that he has begun with a timid supposition; he already believes that he can see it all, that everything is clear and his argument concluded with the words: 'So that is how it was; so this is the people we have to assume it is; so it is from this point of view that we look at the subject!' Then he proclaims ex cathedra, for all to hear, and the newly discovered truth is sent travelling all over the world, gathering followers and disciples” (id, 197-198).

#26

“He undressed immediately after it, and getting under the bedclothes fell fast asleep, fell into a sound sleep, into that wonderful sleep which only happy mortals enjoy who know nothing of haemorrhoids, or fleas, or strongly developed intellectual faculties” (Gogol, 1961: 141).

GOGOL, Nikolai (1961). Dead Souls. Translation by David Magarshack. London: Penguin Books.